Economic traders are individuals with means and ends. Their means includes their resources and labor. Traders use means to achieve their ends in hierarchical fashion. Resources are limited and ends cannot all be achieved at once so traders use their means as efficiently as possible.
Owing to this hierarchy, resource efficiency is maximized when used by economic traders. Notice that this maximization is by the trader’s own judgement. Using these resources is what it means to earn. The economic trader earns.
State officials use resources that they themselves do not own, supposedly for the interests of those from whom the resources were taken. Yet no man can know another’s interests better than himself. So the state official does not use resources for the interests of the subject over whom the state official rules.
If the economic trader’s interests require hiring experts to better manage his resources, he is free to do just that. Since the expert is hired voluntarily, he must reciprocate (i.e., he must compete). Thus, he must be efficient and competent. The state official is not freely hired. State officials’ acquisition of resources relies on the monopoly of law (violence or the threat of violence against subjects). The state official does not earn. The state official takes.
The territorial monopoly of law is capable of imposing taxations and surcharges. The institutional primary interest of the state is to secure and maintain the power to take. In terms of the goal of any public project, the state official’s primary use of resources is to ensure his continued privilege to take. Thus the state official uses resources less efficiently than the economic trader.
Since the economic trader minimizes waste by efficiency, then he also minimizes pollution as pollution is a form of waste. So contrasted with markets (economic traders), the state can only worsen pollution.